The American past reads like something of a horror movie; maybe even a low-budget slasher. American history comes at us dripping with gore; victims lying scattered on the ground; eldritch moonlight revealing creeping horrors you never learned from your eighth grade history textbook. The history of the United States offers a chamber of horrors; with clergy transforming the Native American other into demonic beings; mad scientists turning state-funded laboratories into torture chambers; and the photographic revolution of the Victorian era turning toward a morbid fascination with the bodies of the dead and the creation of the category of 'gore.' History is horror.―excerpted from the IntroductionSalem witches; frontier wilderness beasts; freak show oddities; alien invasions; Freddie Krueger. From our colonial past to the present; the monster in all its various forms has been a staple of American culture. A masterful survey of our grim and often disturbing past; Monsters in America uniquely brings together history and culture studies to expose the dark obsessions that have helped create our national identity.Monsters are not just fears of the individual psyche; historian Scott Poole explains; but are concoctions of the public imagination; reactions to cultural influences; social change; and historical events. Conflicting anxieties about race; class; gender; sexuality; religious beliefs; science; and politics manifest as haunting beings among the populace. From Victorian-era mad scientists to modern-day serial killers; new monsters appear as American society evolves; paralleling fluctuating challenges to the cultural status quo. Consulting newspaper accounts; archival materials; personal papers; comic books; films; and oral histories; Poole adroitly illustrates how the creation of the monstrous "other" not only reflects society's fears but shapes actual historical behavior and becomes a cultural reminder of inhuman acts.
#707571 in Books Stavans; Ilan (EDT) 2009-10-15 2009-10-15Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 8.38 x 1.69 x 5.82l; 1.97 #File Name: 1598530518850 pages
Review
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful. Ubi panis ibi patria. Where are your roots? In my suitcaseBy H. SchneiderAn anthology of writing about immigration; including the involuntary kind; slavery and deportation. A phenomenology of immigration. Texts from memoirs; letters; journals; fiction; or poems. In many cases; the texts are frustratingly short; but briefness is the price of a broad scope. Many immigrants had to overcome hardships...some didn't. Many came for `bread'; others for politics or survival. The focus is much more on arriving than on leaving. That does lead to some uniformity. A few texts stand out for their writing; are funny or otherwise interesting.The collection starts with a letter home to England; 400 years ago; written by an indentured servant in Virginia; to his parents.Then a poem by a Puritan.A poem by or about a deported thief (Australia became the destination of deportation only after American independence).The story of a young West African aristocrat who was enslaved 'by mistake' in 1730 and managed to get set free out of Maryland via England within 2 years. This is told by the man's lawyer. (As a plebeian; I find it rather unsettling that we see this kind of class privilege even in slavery.) A poem by the slave girl who became a poet.A series of Europeans; some quite miserable; most on the search for better prospects. Some didn't stay; went back because their hopes were not realized or their reason to come had gone. Mostly unknown people; and some fictional characters; but also some outstanding ones.The French birder who comes to the US after the revolution in Haiti.The librettist of Don Giovanni; Columbia U's first professor of Italian.The English actress who marries a slave holder and becomes an abolitionist (journal excerpts from her early acting years in New York; might have been more interesting during her slaveholding abolitionist years).The German democrat who becomes a Union General; the first US Senator of German origin; and Secretary of the Interior.The Danish jack of all trades who makes a name as a reporter and photographer of slum conditions in NY.Hollywood immigrants. Asian immigrants. Hispanic immigrants.Jewish immigrants; mostly refugees from pogroms and Hitlerism.Other refugees from Hitlerism. Iron curtain refugees. Post iron curtain immigrants.A broad canvas; but: some groups are left out entirely; like Armenians (except a poet born 1949); Cambodians; Rwandans. Given their tragic story and its size; that is relevant omission. Hard to see why they are not here.Another question of weight distribution: slavery is decidedly underrepresented; as is later African and also Middle Eastern immigration.A subject that is totally absent: illegal immigration. Unless I overlooked something. Also missing: the immigration of organized crime.Among my favorite texts in this book is Isherwood's diary; which happens to be rather not concerned with emigration; but with Isherwood's identity problems. And Thomas Mann's letter of 1945; explaining to a German why he wouldn't return 'to help' Germany.My point: as an anthology on 'becoming Americans'; this works only half ways. Can such an anthology ever be fully `balanced'?As a collection of interesting texts; it is quite good.7 of 7 people found the following review helpful. Interesting readBy Hazel L JenkinsI'm still reading this book so cannot give a deep review but what I've read so far is very interesting. One thing I don't like is just when I'm getting into someone's story the excerpt ends and I am left wishing I could read more The book is a good illustration of what some of our forebears had to deal with when they came to America; the land of Golden Streets and their frustrations when they arrived without much money; not speaking the language and needing to get a job to support themselves. Will continue to read.0 of 2 people found the following review helpful. InterestingBy I Am HerRequired book for my Immigrant Lit class. The collection of short stories are very engaging and entertaining. You really get a glimpse into the many lives of different immigrants.
